Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman faced an unusually tough crowd Wednesday during a stop at the online review site Yelp, where young staffers bombarded her with questions about her negative ads, her record-breaking spending and her stance against gay marriage. It was a far cry from the highly scripted campaign stops the former eBay chief executive has grown accustomed to during her campaign for California governor.

[…] While Whitman regularly visits small businesses and tech startups, particularly in the Silicon Valley, she found a different crowd at Yelp’s five-floor headquarters in the heart of liberal San Francisco. About 250 employees listened to Whitman’s speech in a conference area next to foosball and ping-pong tables and a kitchen that featured snacks and beer on tap. She said she was invited to the company by chief executive and co-founder Jeremy Stoppelman, who knew Whitman when he was vice president of engineering at PayPal, which was acquired by Whitman’s eBay. Yelp spokesman Vince Sollitto said the company has also invited Brown to speak.

So what’d they talk about?

Susan McKay, 24, an advertising account executive who asked the first question after Whitman’s prepared speech, set the tone by calling Whitman’s ad misleading and accusing the GOP nominee of using “smear tactics” throughout her campaign. Whitman defended the ad and said that the unions that support Brown have spent nearly $17 million on attack ads against her and that she needed to respond. “My view is, I have to, as a serious candidate for governor, point out actually Jerry Brown’s real record,” she said. […] Whitman was forced to defend an ad she is running that features footage of former President Bill Clinton criticizing her rival, Jerry Brown, in a 1992 presidential debate. Whitman said running the ad is the right thing to do and that “the essentials of that ad are absolutely true.”

And then it came to The Gays.

The former CEO tried to keep the focus on the hallmarks of her platform: cutting state spending by eliminating waste, making government more efficient by using technology and improving public schools. But she faced several uncomfortable moments when staffers questioned her about her opposition to gay marriage, both during the event’s official question-and-answer session and afterward.

The GOP nominee said she favors civil unions over gay marriage, and that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Brown, the state’s attorney general, had a duty to appeal a federal court decision that found California’s anti-gay marriage initiative Proposition 8 unconstitutional. “It’s not up to the attorney general to decide whether they think things are constitutional or not,” Whitman said.

“It’s not up to the attorney general to decide whether they think things are constitutional or not,” Whitman said.

Then why do we have them, you dumbass?

And who does decide what is constitutional? Because the American people are extremely underqualified compared to, say, an attorney general, who is typically well-read about our legal system.

How in the hell did she get this far when she clearly knows nothing?

Sep 16, 2010 at 8:14 pm · @Reply ·

B

“‘It’s not up to the attorney general to decide whether they think things are constitutional or not,’ Whitman said.” …. which shows that Whitman either didn’t read or is ignoring http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gay_marriage_trial : “‘Although it is not every day that the attorney general declines to defend a state law, the state Constitution or an initiative, he may do so because his oath requires him (to) support the United States Constitution as the supreme law of the law,’ Deputy Attorney General Tamar Pachter wrote on Brown’s behalf Wednesday.” It’s no surprise – for years she was too busy to vote.

Re No 2, “How in the hell did she get this far when she clearly knows nothing?” … having a billion dollars in the bank gets you a very long way. Even funnier, she claims she will not be influenced by “special interests” ignoring the fact that someone with her wealth qualifies as a one-woman special interest!

Sep 17, 2010 at 12:11 am · @Reply ·

wompman

“How in the hell did she get this far when she clearly knows nothing?”

Cash and connections. Same way a certain moron got into the White House in 2000.

Sep 17, 2010 at 1:27 am · @Reply ·

fizzydrink

Wait — she’s against government waste but she’s FOR spending millions of dollars to defend an initiative that provides no economic benefits (and arguably a net loss)? Wha?

Sep 17, 2010 at 2:52 am · @Reply ·

B

No. 5 · fizzydrink wrote, “Wait — she’s against government waste but she’s FOR spending millions of dollars to defend an initiative that provides no economic benefits (and arguably a net loss)? Wha?”

She’s going to save money by eliminating lobbyists – as a one-woman special-interest billionaire, she figures she’ll cut out the middle man. Why pay a lobbyist when the special interest and the governor are the same person!